Saturday: “Concrete / Complex: A Portrait of McKeldin Fountain”

Courtesy/Facebook

Courtesy/Facebook

Aug. 12

We've been losing things left and right this year, it's honestly hard to keep track of them all—neighborhood institutions and landmarks and spaces giving way to the City's finicky desires, and to developers with loads of money for demolition or renovation or rebranding. "Green space." And so on. One such lost landmark was McKeldin Fountain, the Brutalist Inner Harbor structure that was first conceived in the late 1960s and was, at the time, a solution to a new flow of traffic into and out from the city, where pedestrians could walk across the concrete elevated skywalks instead of dodging cars. After its completion in 1982, the structure eventually became either an eyesore or an icon, depending on who you asked. Either way, it was a frequently used public space for play and protest—notably, it was the site of the 2011 Occupy Baltimore protests and frequently the site of several Black Lives Matter protests. Now the fountain is gone, replaced by a green space. A lawn. But during the structure's final days, artists Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio documented the place with field recordings, video, and photography, and have created for their show at Current Space what sounds like a phenomenological installation that references McKeldin Fountain's harsh edges and immense planes. Through this work, Collis and Donadio "offer a sensory memorial experience of McKeldin Fountain, opening a layered engagement with viewers." Though the structure's gone and the physical space is changed, these artists attempt to resurrect its essence. Opening reception 7-10 p.m., on view through Sept. 3, Current Space, 421 N. Howard St., currentspace.com, free. (Rebekah Kirkman)